Years of writing 'At Home With' have shown me many great houses. Here are some of my favorites

Joanne Kempinger Demski | Special to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Sorensens have modern home in rural Delafield setting

Mark Sorensen and Kathy O’Brien Sorensen found the perfect piece of land for their Delafield home.

Have you ever passed a home and wished you could go inside to see the rest of it?

I’ve been able to do just that since taking on the job of writing the “At Home With” features for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

For years, I’ve had people contact me and suggest I write about their homes, or the homes of relatives or friends. But I’ve also contacted homeowners on my own to say they should share their unique homes with our readers. I’ve even rapped on their doors or accosted them in their gardens.

Homes I’ve done have been in every category imaginable; modern, Victorian, new, historic, full of high-end amenities, or filled with kitsch.

Because we haven't been able to go into homes due to the coronavirus, I decided to dig up some of my favorite homes from years past to share with you.

These are homes that have stood out in my mind for different reasons.

I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed taking a trip back in time.

Here are some favorites, numbers six to 10, in random order. The top five will be printed next week.

Spectacular views and gardens (2016)

Many striking homes I’ve written about were renovated with a good amount of work done by the homeowners.

Here Jeff and Laura Otto did the redesign and lots of work on their 1990s home themselves, but in some spots, it took them awhile to get things right.

One example in the 2,600-square-foot home is the living room fireplace, which took three tries.

First a generic brick was added, then chiseled off. Stacked stone was added next, but that still wasn’t what they wanted, so it was removed. Finally a blend of three natural stones was used to get the look they wanted.

It was so perfect, in fact, that the homeowners decided to add the same stone to cover most of the concrete siding they had already added at the front of the house, which faces the lake, and to a good portion of the front of the garage, which faces the road.

Multiple attempts at perfection also happened in the master bathroom.

There a multicolored natural stone was first added on the walls and the area that surrounds a whirlpool tub; and a travertine was used on the floor.

But the tile just wasn’t right, so it was taken out and replaced with a ceramic tile that matched the natural stone perfectly.

Changes were also made to the landscaping. First the homeowners hauled most of the 30 tons of limestone slabs and boulders to their home to build raised beds and accent areas around their home. But they later decided to add additional raised beds, so they rearranged boulders, which necessitated that changes be made to the home’s irrigation system.

To make their gardens unique and beautiful, they spent “a few thousand dollars” on plants each year; most of which are annuals.

Included in that amount are two small palm trees at the front of the house and a large one at the back just off the road where it can easily be seen.

They also created a lush flowerbed that runs about 35 feet along the side of the home that has lots of flowers, a pump, large rocks and garden art.

Picking the perfect spot (2017)

Location, location, location are words I often hear when I tour homes.

Never was that more apparent than when I visited a home in the Town of Delafield.

There Mark Sorensen and Kathy O'Brien Sorensen said finding the perfect piece of land was the most important factor for them.

Because they wanted to be off the road and in an area that was private, they scouted out spots on their property for the best location. They picked an area toward the rear of the property where they would get a lot of light into their home, and where they could have a walkout lower level.

Here trees were also a factor.

There was a large maple that would give them shade, as well as cherry trees and pines that could be kept.

But there were also pine trees where the house would be, so they moved 17 of them to areas near the house.

When they built the house, main components they used were galvanized metal, cedar siding, glass and exposed concrete. They also opted for a style of home that used some of the design principles of Frank Lloyd Wright, for example clerestory windows and an entrance with a lower ceiling that opens into the main living area where there are high ceilings.

After the house was built they added small-scale trees, including a Summer Glow Tamarisk, a ginkgo and a white pine.

They also decked out their deck, which was 40 feet long and about 16 feet wide, with a large table made of old pieces of wood, and they put rollers on the bottom of a big and old tree stump to use as a coffee table.

Making the best of a barn (2013)

It’s not unusual to see old farmhouses beautifully restored. But it is unusual to see a restored farmhouse with its out buildings restored to the same level.

When they started making improvements to the buildings, the roof in the barn was riddled with holes, and rain would come in. The chicken coop was on the verge of collapse and they had to either renovate it or tear it down.

So they set to work repairing them, and ended up creating unique and comfortable spaces filled with repurposed items as well as unique finds.

They include an old copper sink with a pump and an old farm table in the chicken coop, and in the barn there are four church pews that were reupholstered and painted, and an old workbench to which wheels were added so it could be used as a buffet/bar.

There’s also a leather couch in the chicken coop that can give views of a creek that runs through the property, and there are couches in the barn’s lower level perfect for viewing nature.

When the spaces were finished, the homeowners used them for entertaining friends and family, as well as to host charity events.

In addition to sprucing up buildings, extensive landscaping was also done.

Gardens and walking paths were created, and an allèe (a walkway lined with trees and shrubs) was added near the house in an area that runs from the courtyard to the backyard.

Plants were obtained from friends as well as curbside, and 70 trailers of mulch were hauled from the recycling center one year.

A huge, old prairie style house (2016)

At an east side home I saw, I marveled not only at the way the house was restored, expanded and decorated, but also at the fact that it was done by three people.

It helped that they were lifelong friends and that they had the same style in decorating. Another plus was that the house was 8,000 square feet with four stories, giving them plenty of privacy with both common and private areas.

At the home, which was built in 1902 in a prairie style, Michael and Cynthia Hosale and Diane Dziengel did a substantial amount of work, much of it themselves.

They restored all the hardwood floors, refurbishing a first-floor bathroom, replaced all the homes knob and tube wiring, painted and removed wallpaper, repainted and added wallpaper, turned a storage area into a sitting area and added custom decorative paneling for the lower walls in some rooms.

They restored the roof and chimney, added new copper gutters, had brick cleaned and tuck-pointed, stripped and painted the exterior trim and restored metal railings and trim at the front of the house.

They also had custom work done.

In the living room they had the fireplace restored, added a wood coffered ceiling, decorative molding to frame the bay, and elaborately decorative radiator covers. Custom woodwork was also done in the bathroom and hallway.

The most dramatic changes occurred when they updated the kitchen and added an addition.

In the kitchen they eliminated two butler's pantries, a back hallway and a stairway to open the area, added a beamed ceiling and a two-way fireplace that can be accessed from the sunroom.

The first floor of the addition includes the sunroom, a conservatory with a slate floor in a decorative pattern, skylights and large windows with a small courtyard on one side, and a four-car garage/carriage house.

On the lower level they added a media room and a pool room that has a 15-by-8-foot swim spa - that had to be dropped in with a crane - and a spa room with a bathroom and dry heat sauna.

To make the addition match the original house, they only used materials that would have been available when this house was built — both inside and outside.

Other extras in the home included two wide, 8-foot-tall sliding doors with five horizontal panels each; a large pocket door that leads to the living room; fireplaces in the living room and foyer; and uniquely shaped windows in the living room.

Restoring an old boarding house (2018)

When you see big and beautiful historic homes that are in great condition, there are likely to be interesting stories to tell.

When Ed and Beth Sahagian-Allsopp bought it, a previous owner had already made changes to return a good portion of the home to a single-family dwelling, as it had been turned into a 12-unit rooming house.

But it was still far, far from move-in condition for the current owners, who ended up doing much of the work themselves or with the help of friends.

There were plaster walls to be repaired, walls and ceilings that needed paint, and hardwood floors and molding that had to be refinished and/or repaired.

There were even bigger projects as well.

One of the most massive undertakings was to the home’s 700-square-foot wrap-around porch, which was sinking. To restore the area, the homeowners jacked the porch up six to eight inches and replaced the structural pillars and all the decorative trim. To duplicate the trim, they had to have nine knives and cutters made.

They also removed two kitchens that had been added to the porch when it was the rooming house. One could be accessed from a door in the front parlor, the other from a door in the middle parlor, which was also a unit.

Other large projects included removing asphalt siding, rebuilding the roof over the area where the two kitchens were, restoring exterior wood and other decorative elements, and painting the house in a painted lady style.

Additional projects on the inside included repairing wood trim, duplicating missing pieces on the home's Eastlake-style front staircase, and repairing full round bead and barrel molding.

On the third floor, which had a number of small rooms from when it was a rooming house, they did more work. All the bedroom closets had been turned into kitchens they had to remove, they removed room dividers, closed up windows not original to the house and painted the space with historic colors

When they furnished the home they added unique pieces. In a parlor there is a Ming Dynasty Chinese table made from stone with a carved inscription of Chinese characters, and in the dining room an old hutch from Afghanistan.

Next week: JoAnne Kempinger Demski's Top Five favorite At Home Withs. Do you, or does someone you know, have a cool, funky or exquisite living space that you’d like to see featured in At Home, when social distancing allows? Contact us at psullivan@gannett.com.

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